


Apprehension

by genmitsu



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Reluctant tracking proves useful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genmitsu/pseuds/genmitsu
Summary: Part of the #SixDrabbles challenge.Prompt: "constant worrying about each other, then wanting revenge when it's suspected that the other is killed"
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Jim Gordon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Apprehension

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Волнение](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24421957) by [genmitsu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/genmitsu/pseuds/genmitsu). 



> Original prompt by mareonel

“What’s that?” Jim looks dubiously at a gadget not unlike a phone that Harvey handed him.

“A gift from Lucius. Some new kind of a tracking bug. Does both tracking and listening. Here, see?” Harvey points at a small screen with a white dot on it. “That’s where it is now.”

“Whom did you put it on?” Jim raises his eyebrows skeptically. Putting a tracking bug on anyone of importance is practically impossible.

“Penguin!” Harvey exclaims proudly and grins at the sight of Jim’s eyebrows climbing up further. “I put it on him as you two were flirting your heads off.”

“We weren’t flirting!” Jim objects vehemently, and louder than he intended, so all the eyes in the precinct are momentarily focused on him. He ducks his head, feeling the blush coming on.

“Yeah, right. As if,” Harvey snorts. “Anyway, here’s the earpiece. You can not only watch your little bird, but listen in on him too.”

At first Jim just looks at the screen from time to time, tracking the movement. It shows a map of Gotham too, with the street names and numbers, and Jim never imagined something like this could be paired up with a tracking technology. The dot moves quickly - a car, of course - makes a stop at Pacific Street, a brief one. Jim makes a note to check the address later anyway. The dot resumes the movement, approaches the club, and stays there until late at night. Jim stuffs the gadget into his pocket as he goes home, and then ends up glancing at the screen all through his dinner, and while doing the dishes, and later, when he’s getting ready for bed. He’s still at the club. Jim only remembers about the earpiece when he’s in bed, but when he puts it into his ear and listens, there’s only silence.

“Where did you put it, anyway?” Jim asks after the bug remained motionless all through the day, still at the club, and the earpiece staying silent.

“Under his suit jacket’s collar. It shouldn’t have fallen off… Lucius said about some complex kind of thing, said it would stick even to glass,” Harvey scratches his beard thoughtfully. “And if it was discovered, he’d smash it, I bet.”

Jim scoffs. Much use that bug is, huh, when all you need to counter it is change your clothes. But it couldn’t have been easy with Oswald to begin with, he’s constantly changing his suits and accessories, he doesn’t have anything constant he wouldn’t part with. His phone, probably, but putting a bug there is impossible in the first place.

When the dot begins moving again, Jim almost misses it. He’s been on the way to the club to begin with, and glanced at the screen on accident. The dot was slightly moving.

Then it was the usual waltz. Oswald rises to greet him, offers him coffee - too tactful to offer him alcohol - and Jim agrees, and not only because discussing the case would take time. He looks Oswald over carefully, filing away all the details of his attire in his mind, and Oswald blushes charmingly under his stare, he’s almost bashful, his voice a little uncertain - and the handshake goodbye seems to be more prolonged and tender. Jim wants to stay longer, see how Oswald would react to him more, but he stifles these thoughts, as per usual. He’s still a cop. Oswald is still a criminal. He can’t be wanting this.

Jim listens to Oswald giving orders, the way he does, which underlings he addresses, with whom he speaks on the phone and how. His voice and manner are so different than when he talks to Jim, but even like this, when it’s cold and stern, inflexibly commanding, even like this it tugs at Jim’s heart and he wants to listen, and listen, and listen to it… Jim doesn’t even take notes, he just waits for Oswald to speak again. A sudden quiet sigh surprises him, and his imagination is quick to supply him with a fitting image - Oswald, leaning back in his chair and throwing his head back to rest, baring his neck, his eyes closed as he allows himself a few moments of relaxation. Jim involuntarily licks his lips.

Several days of silence follow, and then the whole city bursts into action. Calls, each more and more difficult, some small gangs turf wars, and he is caught in a shootout along with Alvarez, and as he provides covering fire, the earpiece he barely takes off suddenly comes alive with Oswald’s cold voice. He can’t make out any words in the surrounding racket, the car sirens get closer and closer, and then a new shot is fired. Jim knows and feels, at once, that it came from that side - through the earpiece. And when the backup finally arrives and they manage to subdue the gangs, Jim finds himself unable to focus, concentrating instead on the silence.

Jim tosses and turns in his bed, failing to fall asleep. The earpiece is silent. It’s the silence of the tech turned off, it’s the absence of the signal, there’s only _nothing_ and Jim can’t stop straining his ears.

The city is alive and restless with rumours of Penguin getting killed, and Jim feels his anger coil in cold knots inside his chest, and he mercilessly slams an informer into the wall, almost growling as he demands to reveal the killer’s name.

Jim has never heard it before.

Oswald’s club is not empty, but it’s also restless. Gabe is nowhere to be found, and Butch looks exhausted and rumpled, clearly struggling to stay on top of things. There’s a cleaning crew trying their best to tidy the place up. Jim notices bullet marks in the walls and furniture.

“No,” Butch shakes his head. “Not here.”

The lead he got from Butch and the last coordinates of the tracking bug point to an abandoned factory. An unknown ‘Frankie’ chose the place, Butch told him, and the offer was appealing enough for Oswald to make time and go see if it was worth it. Frankie decided to change the terms of the deal in the process.

Jim finds Oswald’s suit jacket - the one he saw him last in - and it’s torn and dirty. There’s blood splatter on its left side, and a sleeve is missing. Jim finds the no longer working tracking bug under the collar.

Jim rouses all of the CIs and information sources, he requests assistance from other departments, from the federal database, he rushes as much as he can, and still he arrives at the door only to hear a gunshot. He freezes, the cold dread engulfs him.

He opens the door.

Oswald stands before him, pale, ruffled, his shirt wrinkly, and he has a crude bandage on his shoulder. He holds a gun. There’s that Frankie lying before him with a hole in his head, a pistol dropping from his now loose grip. Self-defence.

“You’re alive,” Jim breathes out, only now realising how tense he’s been all this time.

Oswald raises his eyebrow. “Did you think for a second that this idiot was capable of killing me?”

“No,” Jim says, coming closer, closer, almost touching him. “I couldn’t allow myself to even think it.”

Oswald smiles softly and lays his head on Jim’s shoulder.

“Take me home, Jim.”

Oswald didn’t say to take him to his mansion.

Jim didn’t offer to.

What for, if he already had the necessary medical kit at home.


End file.
